Take a look at all the lines in hockey, the ones currently skating together regularly. Go ahead. Consider the top five. Not one of them is better than this one would be if they were healthy:

Franzen, Filppula, Cleary. A pure scorer, a playmaker, a grinder with a shot, a nuisance in front of the net, a battler and all three are proven playoff studs.

Unfortunately all three, plus little Willie, are broken. Oh, some casts are gone and that’s nice. But let’s be honest. We’re not going to see a completely healthy lineup the rest of the way. And I mean all year.

The greatest American player to ever don the blades will not jump at any NHL offer. It will depend. Or so he says.

“No, it wouldn’t make sense to be honest with you,” said Chelios. “It would have to be the right situation. I guess unless Detroit came to me if they sustained more significant injuries. I’d have to think about it. But I’m enjoying myself here. As bad as I want to play in the NHL, I want to play. That’s the main thing.”

He’s had NHL nibbles. The Phoenix Coyotes took a look at him last month when they were beset by injuries, but Chelios decided not to go that route. And there was another NHL team with serious interest.

“I had one pretty good [NHL] offer and decided not to take it,” said Chelios.

The problem is pretty straightforward: Jokes that are funny when you’re in your mid-teens tend not to be funny to other groups – in this case women, or most adults in general. But with some very quick searching, I found this prospect was not alone; some of his peers also left an unseemly electronic breadcrumb trail that, I would have to expect, could illicit some pretty damning questions when the NHL draft combine comes up in the summer.

Imagine – you walk into a conference room filled with scouts and executives from an NHL team you idolized as a kid and the first question is about a vulgar comment you made on the Internet. Is it getting hot in here, or is just me?

Facts are facts; the World Wide Web has been a revolutionary device, but as someone who grew up without it, I can’t believe some of the stupid things people do on it. As in, once something embarrassing is out there, it isn’t going to disappear – ever.

A quick look at the standings shows that the Carolina Hurricanes have been the worst team in the league, by a significant margin, so far this season. They have a 7-23 record (with five regulation tie points). This leaves them in last place in the league by an eight point margin. This is a team that made a semi-final appearance last season. How did the Hurricanes fall so far so fast?

The Hurricanes have had no offensive stars so far this season. Ray Whitney leads the team in scoring with 20 points. This is the third lowest total for a top scorer on his team (Phoenix and St Louis have 19 point top scorers). Carolina has the lowest goals per game total in the league. They have dropped over half a goal per game from last season. Three players have shouldered a large portion of this drop. Eric Staal, Sergei Samsonov and Rod Brind’Amour have all had significant drops in their offensive output.

Looking ahead to the 2010 Olympic Men’s Hockey Tournament, it’s worth checking out which players are performing well in the NHL so far this season. Throughout December, there will be weekly updates on different positions. Last week, we looked at the goaltenders. This week, it’s time to look at the defence.

As expected, Canada is very well-stocked on the blueline, with the top four ranked blueliners in the NHL so far season—Mike Green, Dan Boyle, Duncan Keith and Drew Doughty. All are fine skaters and productive offensive defencemen, but it could be difficult for all of them to make the squad, considering needs for size and more physical defensive defencemen.

Along those lines, the likes of Chris Pronger, Shea Weber and Brent Seabrook will earn consideration as will the Calgary Flames trio of Jay Bouwmeester, Dion Phaneuf and Robyn Regehr.

1. They are typically a second-half club. The Ducks went 17-11-2 over their past 30 games last season and 20-8-2 in 2007-08. Granted, that first number was mostly because of their remarkable 10-3-1 season-ending finish, but a team with Scott Niedermayer, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Jean-Sebastien Giguere can’t stay in the cellar much longer, can it?

...

...here’s why the Ducks won’t make the playoffs:

1. Numbers are stubborn things. The Ducks made the postseason with 91 points last season. Using that as criteria, they would need to squeeze 63 points out of their final 52 games. That would be something on the order of a 28-17-7 finish over those 52 games. And 30 of those 52 games are on the road. Yikes.

Survive the next eight games; that’s the immediate mission for the Red Wings.

“Hopefully we are getting all our bad luck out of the way early,” general manager Ken Holland said, after announcing Thursday that Danny Cleary will be lost for three to six weeks because of a separated shoulder. “We have eight games until Christmas. If we can survive this stretch and manage to grind out a few wins and stay attached to the pack, I think we’ll be OK. I think we’re going to get an extended Christmas present here in a couple of weeks.”

Here’s what he means by that:

• Valtteri Filppula, out because of a broken wrist, is expected back by Dec. 26.

• Niklas Kronwall, out because of a knee injury, is expected to return a week after that.

• And then Jason Williams, out because of a fractured leg, and Cleary could be back by the second week in January.

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